FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

1 What is the UNFPA CST South Pacific?

2 How Does It Work?

4 What is the UNFPA System of Technical Advisory Programmes (TAP) ?

What Is The UNFPA System of Technical Advisory Programme?

The Technical Advisory Programme (TAP) system has been designed to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of technical assistance in the field of population in meeting the needs of developing countries.

A. Objectives

The objectives of the arrangement for technical support services are as follows:

To improve the availability to countries of technical knowledge, analysis and research for use in population policies and programmes;
To contribute to an integrated and coordinated multidisciplinary approach to population;
To accelerate the achievement of national self-reliance through the use and development of national and regional individual and institutional expertise; and
To ensure close interaction of research and analytical work with operational activities.

B. Three levels of technical support

Taking into account these objectives and the Fund's two decades of experience in implementing population programmes, UNFPA seeks to support national technical assistance requirements at three levels:

at the national level, through a greater reliance on local expertise and institutions;
at the regional and sub-regional levels, through use of technical personnel in country technical services teams (CSTs) composed of experts from various population disciplines (from UNFPA, the United Nations system and NGOs); and
at the headquarters level and regional office level of the specialized agencies and the United Nations, through support for technical personnel.

C. Operationalizing the team approach

The arrangement has technical experts on eight country support teams, at agency regional offices, and at agency headquarters who support each other to provide technical assistance to countries.

The teams operate out of the following locations: in Africa, Dakar, Harare and Addis Ababa; in the Arab Sates, Amman; in Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, Kathmandu and Suva; and in Latin America and the Caribbean, Mexico.

What is the UNFPA CST South Pacific?

The UNFPA Country Teachnical Services Team (CST) for the South Pacific, is a unified multidisciplinary team which is intended to provide timely, high quality and consistent technical support and backstopping to national and regional population programmes and projects in the South Pacific. The team approach will ensure greater coordination, communication, and flexibility in the provision of technical assistance and support. The complexity of population-related problems demands that countries adopt an integrated and multidisciplinary approach to solving them and the CST embodies this approach.

The CST for the South Pacific, based in Suva, Fiji covers the following Pacific Island nations:

Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

How Does the UNFPA CST Work?

The CST provides countries and territories in the Pacific with a wide range of high quality technical support services ranging from ad hoc advisory services to planned national and regional training programmes and close technical backstopping with the aim of developing national self reliance in the population field.

Technical inputs by Team members are planned jointly by the Governments, the UNFPA Country Directors/Representatives, United Nations agencies and the CST Director, with UNFPA-funded project requests for technical assistace channeled through the UNFPA Country Offices.

The services could be in the broad areas of:

Reproductive health including family planning and sexual health
Population and development strategies
Advocacy and information, education and communication
Gender, population and development

Technical support services in these areas are available from the Team to all ministries, national training and research institutions, NGOs, etc. Where necessary, the Team will call upon the services of the Technical Advisory Programme specialists and other experts at the United Nations agencies' headquarters and regional offices.

The Team will also establish close working relationships with local experts, and thereby help strengthen national capacity in the population field.

What Does The UNFPA CST Do?

The functions of the CST include:

Promoting and strengthening national self-reliance in the area of population through technical backstopping, including organizing and conducting training activities in the areas of population, institution building, and programme/project development and management at the national level;
Collaborating with the UNFPA Country Offices, United Nations agencies and others, to identify and mobilize national and regional technical resources, including NGOs, for the provision of technical assistance.
Promoting a multidisciplinary approach to population through, e.g., joint missions and internal meetings;
Maintaining and updating a database of national and (sub)regional expertise which could provide technical assistance at the country level and elsewhere;
Assisting UNFPA's Geographic Divisions in the conceptualization and development of regional/ subregional programme approaches;
Providing active and close backstopping to the local pool of national experts through assisting countries with the state-of-the-art substantive knowledge and skills in the various technical fields in population available in the CSTs, the agencies, and other institutions; and
Synthesizing information on past experience and lessons in providing technical backstopping and in implementing UNFPA's policies and procedures and to disseminate it, through, inter alia, internal technical seminars, workshops and meetings.

Last modified 21/06/00